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Who Dey Revolution Manifesto

Preamble

IN THIS TIME of perpetual Cincinnati Bengals incompetence and futility, with zero playoff wins in the nineteen seasons since the WhoDeyRevolution Godfather, Paul Brown, passed away in 1991 and handed the team to his fortunate son, the Despot, Mike Brown;

Introduction

WE, the members of the Who Dey Revolution, in our fervent dedication to the Cincinnati Bengals and fanatical desire to transform our hometown team into perpetual Super Bowl contenders, call for a popular revolution of fans to demand comprehensive reform to the managerial decisions and approach of Cincinnati Bengals ownership, management, staff and players, and hereby call for the adoption of the following Who Dey Revolution Manifesto:

Manifesto Demands

THAT the Mike Brown, Katie Blackburn, Marvin Lewis, along with every other member of the Bengals management, staff and personnel, state publicly to all Bengals fans, “I will do everything in my power to help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl;”

THAT Mike Brown will hire a general manager, drastically expand the scouting department and relinquish all control of player personnel;

THAT all training, rehabilitation and medical facilities are considered best-in-class compared to other NFL teams;

THAT the management fill the team only with players who fit the system, both mentally and physically, and are not reluctant to makes changes to player personnel when needed, regardless of cost or loyalty concerns;

THAT offensive and defensive line depth is considered the top priority for all player personnel decisions;

THAT all decisions made by ownership, management, staff and players, both on and off the field, are judged only by this criterion: “Does this help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl?”

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Football Outsiders

January 20, 2011

If we got nothing else out of this season, I hoped at least we'd find out once and for all whether or not Carson could be the QB he was in 2005 (or close enough to it). Turned out we didn't even come away with that information. The premise was this:

Carson finally would be healed of whatever the hell that elbow injury actually was in 2008 (check, I think)

The duo of Jerome Simpson and Andre Caldwell combined for 10 catches, 211 yards and two touchdowns on 12 targets. Their success makes it clear: The Owens signing was a disaster for Cincinnati.

That may sound strange considering Owens leads the team in catches, yards and touchdowns, but he's also been the target on 67 incomplete passes, tied for second in the league. Even worse, 12 of Palmer's 18 interceptions (including three pick-sixes) came on passes intended for Owens. Owens has produced a lot of big plays and touchdowns, but Palmer has been much more efficient throwing to the team's other wide receivers.

Holy shit what an indictment!

It puts TOs season in perfect context: at first glance it looked allright but something always seemed fishy...as if his production came at the expenses of the rest of the offense. Now this verifies it. For those scoring at home that means Carson had a 60.3 passer rating when targeting TO...that would beat out only Jimmy Clausen of this year's QBs. Let's look at this more.

In particular, they note his declining statistics, that only Jerry Rice really produced at his age, and that Dallas had to use gimmicks to get TO open as he could no longer get separation in more recent years.

Hmmm...all I can say is that if you believe your eyes he still looks like he has #1 type skills as of this preseason. James Walker, bless him, defends the move to the bitter end using pretty reasonable arguments.

Regardless, I sure wish we had worked with TJ while he was still under contract. If anyone can provide an informed history as to what happened with TJ and why we didn't work to extend him while he was under contract as we did with Chad I would love to see that in the comments. I'm gonna make it a research project myself.

September 02, 2010

Recent disappointing injury news and cuts aside, the Bengals still have plenty to be optimistic about going into this season (though I still want my 3 number 1 WR juggernaut dammit).

For a dose of optimism, head to Bill Simmons land - roughly all of ESPN.com - and check out his recent podcasts on the upcoming NFL season to hear him do a complete 180 on the Bengals. In part 1 of his podcast with Cousin Sal, where they go through the Vegas lines, he shits all over their prospects. Then a week later talking with Mike Lombardi of nfl.com they both seem to think the Bengals can contend for the Superbowl. Anyway, I recommend listening to all his NFL podcasts if for no other reason than to get your crack fix of NFL info for the day. It's only 1130 and I'm already twitching like a junkie.

A friend of mine was walking around NYC and popped this photo of a small business store front:

August 20, 2010

It's Friday. So it's time for some incoherent rambling and random links.

Recently I voluntarily saw 1) Knight & Day and 2) The Expendables. In theaters no less. Where I paid $13 per ticket for movies I knew would be bad. The hope, of course, is that they would be good bad movies. These are movies that are so bad that they somehow come full circle all the way around back to being good. I haven't decided yet if they succeeded. I am leaning towards yes. Why? The key for me is that I have to believe they intended to make a good movie but failed. Don't give me any of these intentionally bad movies that you can only enjoy ironically like Snakes On A Plane. That is some bullshit.

No, I want movies where the directors and actors delusionally believe they will make something awesome but as an outsider familiar with their work you know they have no fucking chance. The 80s perfected this. What a decade. Go watch Tango and Cash, for example, and tell me that a) it's not completely insane and b) those involved created the insanity intentionally. You can't.

I would bet when Tom Cruise and Sly Stallone created these movies, they thought they had masterpieces on their hands.

As for the Bengals, I believe they may have executed this concept to perfection with their roster. Two rules right now dominate the decision to bring crazy people onto your team.

August 05, 2010

Greetings beloved WDR readers. We have a special treat for you today. Rob Weintraub, one of the main men over at the excellent Football Outsiders and, more importantly, a huge Bengals fan graciously answered some of our questions about the Bengals (he even has his own WDR tag!). If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend heading over to the FO site and purchasing their 2010 FO Almanac. It will explode your head with football knowledge (note: Rob did not ask me to plug their almanac, I simply recommend it every year).

On with the questions! (WDR comments in bold)

With your supercomputers in the nerdery, have you ever looked at the correlations of the following:

1) There has never been a study trying to correlate staff size with wins, mainly because the result is obvious: smaller doesn't equal better. 2) As for market size, there is no correlation. (hooray collective bargaining agreement) 3) Our WRs players are the entire sample. 4) Roethlisberger's alcohol consumption is incalculable by the current generation of microchips, but scientists are hard at work.

There will certainly be diminishing returns for WR catches in the cases of Chad, TO and Bryant. Has any study been done to see the effect of a WR's target #'s going significantly down with the addition of other elite talent WRs? On the flip side, is there any evidence of WR’s per catch numbers improving because of the difficulty defenses have defending three elite talents?

Feature running back, Jerome Harrison vs. second-round pick Montario Hardesty: Despite smashing two franchise records, posting the third-highest rushing game in NFL history and totaling 561 yards in his last three games of 2009, the slightly built Harrison probably begins camp as the No. 2 back behind the impressive, if injury-prone, University of Tennessee rusher.

I just had to laugh when I read this. I figured the Browns penciled in Harrison immediately after his outstanding season ending string of performances (which, as we shall see, should have surprised no one). Nope. From Football Outsiders:

Browns unsigned restricted free agent Jerome Harrison only skipped a few OTAs this offseason, but he may have lost his spot on the depth chart in the process.

Rookie running back Montario Hardesty ran with the first team offense at Browns practices when the media were allowed to watch Thursday. Harrison, who rushed for 561 yards in the final three games last season, is seeking a new contract.

I don't know the details all that well, maybe Jerome is asking for way too much. But at this point his production on the field should be undeniable. Well to everyone except Cleveland I guess. From Football Outsiders last year:

How can an anonymous halfback run for 286 yards and three touchdowns? The idea just doesn't apply to other single-game records in sports. No spot starter strikes out 18 guys in a game. Reserve shooting guards don't go off for 83 points.

The answer is that Jerome Harrison simply shouldn't be an anonymous halfback. The fact that he was one until Sunday owes much more to the myopia that envelops football organizations than the weaknesses in his game.

And a little more:

The easy knock on a player like Harrison is that he's too small (5-foot-9, 205 pounds) to carry the full-time workload for an NFL team, and that teams need a back like Lewis to carry the heavy load while Harrison serves as a change of pace. That logic doesn't hold up to the light of day; fellow 5-foot-9 backs include Warrick Dunn (180 pounds), Frank Gore (215), Priest Holmes (213), Steve Slaton (197), and yes, even Emmitt Smith (210).

It's not strictly a running back thing, either -- both the league's top quarterback (Drew Brees) and most active wideout (Wes Welker) are far smaller than the prototypical player at their position. Bad organizations, like the Browns, find what's wrong with their players and use that as a reason to avoid giving them an opportunity.

Maybe the Browns will cease being terrible under Holmgren, but moves like this make the Bengals fan in me a) pleased to know for now at least we still have a doormat in the division and b) perplexed that a franchise in our own division can be run worse than one owned by Mike Brown.

Anyway, if the Browns don't want to give Harrison a contract, I'll take some Benson insurance in the event we cannot agree to terms with him after this year.

July 14, 2010

...the Bengals rank 6th in the NFL in talented players under 25 years old on the roster according to Football Outsiders. Say what you want about Management (and we sure as hell do) but we do have a good base of young guys. They note this is on the defensive side of the ball only, not the offensive side.

The bad news?

The Ravens rank 4th, with boatloads of under 25 talent on each side of the ball and the Browns rank 7th (hey, they won't stay down forever). The AFC North stands alone as the only team with 3 teams in the top 10. The odd team out, of course, is Pittsburgh. And while Chad correctly observes they're just a bunch of girls, I think we can all agree girls from Pittsburgh are not to be trifled with.

It adds up to some pretty tough competition for a long time within the division if the teams keep their talent and continue to develop it.

June 30, 2010

I hate the draw play. Not for any reasons inherent to the draw play itself, but simply because I always thought it killed the Bengals. And not just on one side of the ball, but both sides. Our defense seemed so easily fooled by it, while our offense couldn't seem to fool anyone with it.

And even if we did fool people with it, it was in meaningless situations. I write under the moniker "Sleeping With Bieniemy" largely because of the endless times we called a draw play on 3rd and long for Eric Bieniemy back in the 90s. If you close your eyes and think back to those days, you can hear whatever nepotism-fueled hire they had calling plays back then squeal "They'll never see it coming!!!" as he dialed up another shitty draw. Yeah, they'll never see it coming asshole BECAUSE IT'S A STUPID FUCKING CALL THAT IS DESTINED TO FAIL. Congrats, you got 8 yards, now you still have to punt.

Point is, to me the draw captured in a single play the massive incompetence of the entire franchise. And so I hate it.

June 02, 2010

The nerds who dwell in their nerdery with their nerd calculators (Football Outsiders) penned this recent article on QB Hurries, basically a junior varsity version of the Sack. Sacks grab attention but hurries can be just as influential, especially since they are much more numerous than sacks.

How much more numerous, you ask? Well, as part of the FO Game Charting Project (where they literally hire folks to rewatch every play of every game and hopefully record better and more accurate statistics), FO found that last season there were 3,268 hurries. That is about 3 times the number of sacks and just over twice the number of QB hits (QB knocked down but not sacked). FO found that the average pass play last year yielded 6.2 yards but that when hurried the average pass play fell to just 5 yards, about a 20% drop. And I'm sure the effect would be greater if you compared it to the average pass play when the QB was not hurried at all.

Now to my eyes, our defense line still does not provide as much pressure as I'd like. And in particular, I always thought Geathers seemed like a culprit for this. But it appears my lyin' eyes dun fooled me again, the FO guys rank Geathers in the top 15 in hurries. But more importantly, they note that Geathers ranked 9th highest in the percentage of hurries he accounted for on his entire team (23.3% of all hurries by the Bengals) and 2nd highest in ratio of hurries compared to the next closest guy (242% more hurries than our number 2 guy). The implication here is that Geathers had little help when pressuring the QB. As is obvious from the FO tables, the leaders in hurries tend to come in pairs (think Freeney and Mathis, or Jared Allen and Ray Edwards) so help really matters.

Geathers played without Odom opposite him most of the season. Our next closest guy in hurries was actually Michael Johnson, which a) speaks highly for his potential given he was a rookie with limited playing time - and Zims situational use of him - and b) speaks poorly to the rest of the defense's ability to get to the passer.

Anyway, for a pessimistic guy like myself this article mostly provided a nice little boost to my confidence for a unit I believe is a relative weakness (assuming, of course, their charting project accurately captures Geathers' performance). To recap:

Geathers may be better than I thought

Having Odom back to provide help may matter more than I thought

There is evidence Michael Johnson may actually realize his freak potential

We face some nasty passing offenses this year. Nothing will be more important to the Bengals' success than pressuring the opposing QB.

Update: I must say though, Justin Smith ranks pretty damn high according to these stats too and I always thought he was not that great a player. Certainly good, but overrated and overpaid. So perhaps I will tone down my enthusiasm.

Update 2: funny, Geoff Hoblaw's Hobblog has some stuff up on Geathers including this quote: "When it comes to team stats, that’s another story because it is the ultimate team game. You can’t look up stats for a guy like Bengals left end Robert Geathers and really know if he had a good year or a bad year, or appreciate his value like you can find on the back of a baseball card." Translation: our front office doesn't use data. Look, football is harder to measure than baseball, but you should still try to measure things that you can, like hurries.

April 20, 2010

I regard the combine as mostly a creepy experience where grown men intensely stare at college kids wearing really tight clothing. However, it turns out perhaps the shuttle run and vertical leap are not wholly useless, at least, when evaluating edge pass rushers.

Behold, another Football Outsiders article, where they unveil their "SackSEER" formula used to evaluate the pro potential of "edge" pass rushers. It's basically a 4 part formula because after running a regression the dude who did the research found that 4 factors were the strongest at predicting NFL performance. The factors are:

Short Shuttle time

Vertical Leap

Sacks per game in college

Total missed games when eligible to play (injuries)

Anyway, I write about this because if my beloved offensive line prospects are not there, I would be satisfied with an edge rusher. I'm sure others feel differently, but our pass rush still strikes me as underwhelming, and I don't know if we'll have JJ & Leon around forever to make it less obvious just how underwhelming it is.

How good is SackSEER? Well, FO lists some players SackSEER would have ranked highly in the past (since 1999) and also those they would have ranked lowly. It's pretty effective based on those lists. You can check that out for yourself. For our purposes, we want to know what it says about the draft this year.

So here's how this formula ranks the current prospects:

Jerry Hughes, TCU

Derrick Morgan, Georgia Tech

Everson Griffen, USC

Brandon Graham, Michigan

Sergio Kindle, UT

Carlos Dunlap, Florida

Jason Pierre-Paul, South Florida

As for the top prospects, not a whole lot stands out (maybe Sergio is overrated a little) except for one: Jason Pierre-Paul, who is getting tons of hype by draft gurus. Here's what FO has to say: